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Fund transfer brings Thomas F. Dyer Trust up to date

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NEW SHARON – After a significant amount of work by a handful of town officials and residents, a trust established to provide educational scholarships and programs for Mt. Blue Regional School District students is back on track.

The MBRSD school board voted unanimously to adopt the recommendations made by a small advisory committee in regards to the Thomas F. Dyer Trust at the Feb. 9 meeting. These recommendations included the transfer of funds to cover the costs of an audit and recently-issued scholarships.

In 1922, the last will and testament of Thomas F. Dyer, a one-time New Sharon resident and manufacturer, established a trust “the Town of New Sharon, to be used for the advancement of education, good citizenship and morality, in the New Sharon High School.” After the New Sharon High School ceased to exist in 1966, MSAD 9 and later MBRSD was named the trust’s successor. A court order issued in 1986 established a three-member committee to administer the trust: the district superintendent, a New Sharon selectman and a school board director representing New Sharon.

According to school board Director Jennifer Pooler, who now chairs the trust committee, despite the court order there existed no committee records between 1986 and February 2015. “Therefore it does not appear that there were ever committee meetings where all of the listed members were present,” she said in a letter released on behalf of the three-member committee.

That changed in March 2015, when Pooler, Selectman Travis Pond and Superintendent Thomas Ward began working with the New Sharon Selectboard and Treasurer Bonita Lehigh to bring the trust’s administration up to date and in compliance with the 1986 court order.

The trust utilizes a principal of roughly $300,000 to issue quarterly interest payments to New Sharon. Per the 1986 order, that income is then divided into two portions, with 75 percent set aside to fund scholarships for graduating Mt. Blue students that meet the terms of the trust. Preference is given to residents of New Sharon. The other 25 percent is used to fund programs at Mt. Blue that align with the terms of the trust.

Additionally, $250 is issued annually to New Sharon to care for cemetery lots associated with the Dyer family.

However, according to Pooler, income from the trust has not been correctly split over the past 29 years. The firm RHR Smith of Buxton undertook an audit of the account at the request of the trust committee. While it was difficult to fully audit the account due to the time that had elapsed and lack of accurate archived records, RHR Smith was able to reach some conclusions using trust transaction reports from U.S. Trust and New Sharon town reports.

The audit concluded that $41,561.36 was due to Mt. Blue RSD’s program funding account, representing the 25 percent split. Meanwhile, the trust’s scholarship account had been over-expended by $5,673.16 as of Dec. 31, 2015. Additionally, another $11,000 had been awarded in scholarships to 2015 graduates and was slated to be paid this year; as those scholarships had been awarded without clear knowledge of the trust’s account balance, that money represented addition, potential shortfall.

Therefore, the potential deficit to the scholarship fund could be as large as $16,673.16.

To remedy this issue, the trust committee proposed that the MBRSD school board approve the transfer of up to $16,673.16 from the trust’s program account to the scholarship account. They also recommended that the auditor’s fee be paid for out of the program account, leaving it with approximately $20,000.

The board agreed and voted unanimously to transfer the trust funds to cover the over-expenditure. Pooler abstained from the voting.

Pooler noted in the committee’s letter that, in addition to thanking the MBRSD board for transferring the funds, the trust committee would like to thank Lehigh for her “tireless effort and countless hours of unpaid accounting, research, and meeting time to bring the Tomas F. Dyer Trust into compliance, it does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.”

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2 Comments

  1. I presented many Dyer Fund scholarships Mt. Blue for several years. I’m glad this has been straightened out.

  2. Thank you Jennifer Pooler, Travis Pond and Dr. Tom Ward for all of your gracious support and acknowledgement. Thank you Thomas Dyer for providing a great opportunity for our students. I am very glad to see this matter resolved so we can work on the advancement of education, good citizenship and morality. Important stuff in my book! ;)

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